"No," she answered, "I understand nothing. Explain yourself. Or wait. It is time now to call Colonel Archdale. You will explain to him this liberty, and the meaning of this--this strange coincidence." "Ah, ha!" he cried. "You see it? Everybody will see it; isn't it so? Tell me," he insisted. "I suppose so," she faltered, looking at his triumphant face and feeling a presentiment that some evil was to fall upon the Archdale family. If so she would have helped to bring it. "Let us send for him," repeated Edmonson. "Or, no. Let us surprise them all, give them an entertainment not planned by mine admirable host. Come, let us go out into the garden, and when we return, here will be a new face to greet us. That will be more as you wish it? I want it to be as you wish." "You have not considered me at all." "The day will come when you will not say that," he answered, looking at her fixedly, then turning away with abruptness. "We must name our new friend," he added. "Suppose we call him Banquo's ghost? Banquo's ghost, you remember, existed to only one person. Did you ever see him on the stage? You must, some day in London. He rises up in solemn majesty from a secret trap door, and overwhelms Mac--Well! here's the trap door." And he touched the slashed tapestry with his finger. "Shall I tell you why I call him so?" he went on, coming close to her as if about to whisper some secret. "No," she said, drawing back. "If you know any secrets belonging to this family, I don't want to hear them. You will be obliged to apologize to the Colonel for defacing his wall, and whatever explanation you have to give, will be given to him." Edmonson watched her with a smile. "Do you know," he said, "that you have an exaggerated conscience? But you have the faculty of making it seem charming. As you please, then. I will give my explanation to the Colonel as soon as he is ready for it--as soon, and even before. Shall we go into the garden again until somebody comes?" Elizabeth did not answer immediately. She stopped on the threshold where she had been standing and looked at the speaker with an expression he could not read. She had thought well of this young man. Was it going to be that she could no longer believe in him? She did not care so much for that in itself, but it seemed as if all the world in which she had moved, the ideal world founded on beauty and nobleness, even if, indeed, one cornerstone of it were pain, had fallen to pieces about her. Among so many ruins the ruin of another ideal would not be so very much, but it would give more pain than was due to itself. As she looked up at him Edmonson's face lost its exultation. "Perhaps I am mistaken; I ought to hear before I judge," she thought.